Editing Neil Simon (section)

=== Screen ===
Simon chose not to write the screenplay for the first film adaptation of his work, ''[[Come Blow Your Horn (film)|Come Blow Your Horn]]'' (1963), preferring to focus on his playwriting. However, he was disappointed with the picture, and thereafter tried to control the conversion of his works. Simon wrote screenplays for more than twenty films and received four [[Academy Award]] nominations—for ''[[The Odd Couple (film)|The Odd Couple]]'' (1969), ''[[The Sunshine Boys (1975 film)|The Sunshine Boys]]'' (1975), ''[[The Goodbye Girl]]'' (1977) and ''[[California Suite (film)|California Suite]]'' (1978). Other movies include ''[[The Out-of-Towners (1970 film)|The Out-of-Towners]]'' (1970) and ''[[Murder by Death]]'' (1976). Although most of his films were successful, movies were always of secondary importance to his plays:<ref name="Grobel" />{{rp|372}}

{{Blockquote | style=font-size: 100%; | text=I always feel more like a writer when I'm writing a play, because of the tradition of the theater&nbsp;... there is no tradition of the screenwriter, unless he is also the director, which makes him an ''[[auteur]]''. So I really feel that I'm writing for posterity with plays, which have been around since the Greek times.<ref name="Grobel" />{{rp|375}}}}

Many of his earlier adaptations of his own work were very similar to the original plays. Simon observed in hindsight: "I really didn't have an interest in films then. I was mainly interested in continuing writing for the theater&nbsp;... The plays never became cinematic".<ref name="Koprince" />{{rp|153}} ''[[The Odd Couple (film)|The Odd Couple]]'' (1968), was one highly successful early adaptation, faithful to the stage play but also opened out, with more scenic variety.<ref>{{Cite web |url = http://www.irishnews.com/arts/2018/08/31/news/cult-movie-neil-simon-s-classic-comedy-the-odd-couple-1418601/ |title = Cult Movie: Neil Simon's classic comedy The Odd Couple |last = McLean |first = Ralph |website = The Irish News |date = August 31, 2018 |language = en |access-date = August 31, 2018 }}</ref>